BigBendFishing.Net

Okay, laugh at me if you must, but the other day I was out in my little sailing dinghy, rowing down to the channels from the house and waiting for enough wind to troll for Spanish. The water was clear and still. Stingrays were everywhere on the flats.

I was intrigued, because the few times I've hooked a good-sized stingray, it was fun to fight. Then I remembered Emeril talking about how good stingrays were to eat-- like scallops, he said, or shrimp. I looked on the web and found lots of recipes and a few how-to pieces, but mostly from folks in the north or from Britain, where the more desireable fish are harder to catch.

Anyway, are there any stingray fishermen in this area, and how do they go about catching the critters?

Ray

As a kid we would gig them on the flats at St Joe...
It was a fun distraction after scalloping or fishing.

One of us would poll the boat and the other would stand on the front as we slid over the sandy flats areas.

I remember skinning them and then cutting off the wings to eat.
There is some cartilage in the middle.

The center of the body went into the crab traps.

We just fried it - like everything else back then


One other thing- we caught them a lot off the beach when fishing for whiting with shrimp on the bottom. They are bottom feeders so if you want to try them on hook and line put the bait on the bottom.

Any kind of cut bait on the bottom should do it. As I kid I used to catch them on dead shiners (pinfish). That experience forms my opinion that it takes a pretty big one to make them worth cleaning. Bigger ones pull like a tractor. When you get one that sucks to the bottom just poke him with something or drop of rock on his back to make him take off again. A sharp pair of long handled loppers are handy for cutting off the tail so he doesn't get you with it while you're handling him.

bman wrote:As a kid we would gig them on the flats at St Joe...
It was a fun distraction after scalloping or fishing.

One of us would poll the boat and the other would stand on the front as we slid over the sandy flats areas.

That's a pretty good idea. I have a couple of teenage sons who'd probably love to play at being Queequeg the Harpooner.

Today my wife and I trolled down to the Coast Guard station and back, and caught about 4 dozen ladyfsh and blue runners. I guess they must have scared off all the spanish and bluefish, because we didn't see a one of either. But I kept a badly-hooked ladyfish, on the theory that ladyfish is a good shark bait, so maybe it would make good stingray bait. Weird day. We even caught a couple of saltwater cats on trolled Clark spoons.

Ray

Charles wrote:A sharp pair of long handled loppers are handy for cutting off the tail so he doesn't get you with it while you're handling him.

That's a very good idea.

Ray

My son has been gigging them for years in front of the house. He uses a pretty good size four prong flounder gig mounted on a 10' section of 1.5" round stock. He just wades and finds them from right on the beach to out to three feet depending on the tide. We cut them up and use them for shark bait and crab trap bait Never tried to clean and eat any ,maybe we have been missing something

Second Chance wrote:We cut them up and use them for shark bait and crab trap bait Never tried to clean and eat any ,maybe we have been missing something

I guess that remains to be seen, but I found some recipes here:

http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=stingray

The recipe Emeril was demonstrating was something like the Stingray Grenobloise in that list.

I've seen several different takes on how to prepare them. Some say to bleed them thouroughly by making a cut through the gills when landed. Some say to soak the meat like shark, but others say it's not necessary. Everyone seems to agree that the cartilage-- which forms a layer between the top and bottom of the wing-- should be removed before cooking. Looks like it might be a delicate job.

Ray

raywillsail wrote:

Charles wrote:A sharp pair of long handled loppers are handy for cutting off the tail so he doesn't get you with it while you're handling him.

That's a very good idea.

Ray

Yeah, well when you're about 13 or so and get popped in the thumb it tends to freak-out Grandma (that was the best part ), but it kind of hurts bad enough you figure it's not worth doing again.

raywillsail wrote:...Everyone seems to agree that the cartilage-- which forms a layer between the top and bottom of the wing-- should be removed before cooking. Looks like it might be a delicate job.

Ray

It's not really that hard. Just like doing a fillet, but with no rib bones to go through or around. If I remember right, the top of the wing has thicker meat than the bottom.

raywillsail wrote:Then I remembered Emeril talking about how good stingrays were to eat-- like scallops...

The rumor used to be that you could cut "scallops" out of the wings with a sharpened piece of pipe, bread and fry them up - and you weren't supposed to be able to tell the difference. Since then I have alway wondered about that when at a seafood restaurant...

I wonder if someone figured out a way to make a fake fried oyster